Slake their parch’d throats with sugar’d mulberries—
In single file they move and stop their breath,
For fear they should dislodge the o’erhanging snows—
So the pale Persians held their breath with fear.
—Sohrab and Rustum. M. Arnold.
Note how, after the words, “whom they loved,” the atmosphere changes from that of joy to that of dread and scorn—scorn at the cowardice of the Persians, and the dread that the speaker would sympathetically feel as he recounted the deed.
This too thou know’st, that while I still bear on
The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world,
And beat the Persians back on every field,
I seek one man, one man, and one alone—